World News Quick Take

Agencies

MEXICO

People smugglers caught

Authorities said on Saturday that they broke up a trafficking ring that brought foreigners, mostly Asians, into the nation intent on smuggling them into the US. Prosecutors said they detained seven Mexicans and three Bangladeshis accused of moving the migrants to the northern border with the US at a huge cost and in grim conditions. The migrants came from places like India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan, as well as Iran and Somalia, officials said. The ring was based in Mexico City and the Caribbean coastal state of Quintana Roo, prosecutors said. In a raid police found 13 people — two from India, five from Bangladesh and six from Nepal — held in unhealthy conditions waiting to be moved by traffickers. It was not immediately known how many people were trafficked over what time period. At least 140,000 people enter the country every year trying to reach the US, according to official estimates.

UNITED STATES

Manatee deaths rise

The number of manatee deaths in Florida has topped 800 for the first time since such record-keeping began in the 1970s. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Research Institute in St Petersburg said 803 manatee deaths have been recorded this year. That is about 16 percent of the state’s estimated population of 5,000 manatees. Martine DeWit of the institute’s Marine Mammal Pathology Laboratory told the Tampa Bay Times that 173 of the dead animals were breeding-age females. It was unclear what effect these deaths will have on the endangered species’ population. The previous record for manatee deaths was 766, set in 2010 after a lengthy cold snap. Scientists blame a massive bloom of red tide algae in southwest Florida and a mysterious ailment affecting manatees in the Indian River Lagoon for this year’s deaths.

UNITED STATES

Sacked pastor invited west

A United Methodist pastor from central Pennsylvania who was defrocked after officiating his son’s gay wedding has been invited by a California Methodist bishop to serve in her region. Frank Schaefer says he is deciding whether to accept the offer from Bishop Minerva Carcano to join the California-Pacific Annual Conference. The region includes California, Hawaii and the Pacific Islands. Carcano does not have the authority to restore his credentials, but he says he would have the same rights. Schaefer on Friday appealed the decision of the church’s regional Board of Ordained Ministry to defrock him. A church jury suspended him for 30 days last month and told him to decide whether he would uphold the church’s Book of Discipline or resign. Schaefer refused to surrender his credentials.

UNITED STATES

Girl dies after shooting

A Colorado hospital said a suburban Denver high-school student has died more than a week after being shot by a classmate who then killed himself. Seventeen-year-old Claire Davis had been in critical condition after being shot at point-blank range at Arapahoe High School on Dec. 13. Friends and well-wishers had been posting prayers online and raising money to help pay for her medical care. Arapahoe County Sheriff Grayson Robinson said Davis appeared to be a random target. Authorities said 18-year-old Karl Pierson was likely targeting a librarian, who had disciplined him, when he entered the school with a shotgun, a machete and three Molotov cocktails. Robinson said Pierson shot Davis before killing himself. The librarian escaped the school unharmed.